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After Rough 6 Months, Wales Dropped in Pool of Death

WELLINGTON — The Australians’ last-gasp victory against Wales over the weekend has come back to bite them.

When Kurtley Beale scored his try in the corner to snatch a dramatic 14-12 triumph for the Wallabies, he consigned the Welsh to the third tier of seeds for the pool draw of the 2015 Rugby World Cup.

With England, the tournament host, in the second seedings band for countries ranked five to eight, there was always a chance that one of the top four ranked teams — New Zealand, South Africa, Australia and France — could draw both the English and the Welsh in the pool stages.

Robbie Deans’ side was the unluckiest of the top four teams when the draw was made at the Tate Modern art gallery in London on Monday.

The Wallabies, who head Pool A, now face arguably their toughest World Cup yet. In addition to being paired with England and Wales, they also face the top nonautomatically qualified Pacific nation, which is likely to be Fiji, as well as the 20th and final qualifier, which will be the winner of a playoff series involving teams from Africa, the Americas, Asia and Europe.

At the end of the pool play, only the top two teams from each group progress to the knockout stages, which means one of rugby’s traditionally top nations will not make it through to the quarterfinals.

The Welsh Rugby Union has agreed to be host to some tournament matches, so Australia could find itself playing Wales in a Millennium Stadium in Cardiff packed full of passionate home supporters.

David Pocock, the Australia openside flanker and occasional captain of the side, tried to find the positives in what will be a challenging tournament for his team.

“If you want to win it you have to beat all the best teams, and there’ll be a lot of hype around that game against England and the Welsh game, especially if it is played at Millennium,” he said.

“Those will be two massive games. Throw Fiji in the mix and there are no easy games in the World Cup, and you wouldn’t want it any other way.”

Wales captain Sam Warburton similarly put on a brave face after a disappointing six months for Welsh rugby.

Photo

Sam Warburton and his Wales teammates have had an autumn to forget.Credit
Andrew Yates/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Since winning the Six Nations title in March, Wales has lost a three-test series in Australia and all four of its end-of-the-year internationals, which has resulted in its drop to ninth in the world and its draw for the World Cup.

“You lose seven games in a row this year and that’s what’s going to happen, really,” Warburton said. “That’s the players’ responsibility if we’re in the third band, but it makes an exciting group.

“It was always going to be tough having a Tier 1 and a Tier 2 side in our group. Wales-Australia and Wales-England games have always been entertaining in the past, and there’s two massive crowds that those games will attract, and, from a players’ point of view, two very exciting games to play in.”

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England coach Stuart Lancaster knows his side will have huge home support and probably wishes it had been handed an easier draw.

But his young team will be buoyed by the outstanding performance it produced in the 38-21 thrashing of New Zealand on Saturday.

Lancaster’s challenge is to ensure over the next three years his players reproduce that powerful, fast-paced attacking rugby on a more consistent basis. If they can do that, they should progress from the “pool of death” and into the quarterfinals.

The draw was kinder to the defending champion, New Zealand. Its biggest threat in Pool C will come from its Rugby Championship rival Argentina. The match against Tonga will be a physical one, but there will be easier games against the top qualifiers from Europe — typically Georgia or Romania — and the qualifiers from Africa, which could be Namibia.

New Zealand coach Steve Hansen was not concerned that being in a softer pool would leave his side not fully tested, heading into the knockout stages. The All Blacks had a similarly easy pool in 2007, which left them ill-prepared for their quarterfinal against France, which they lost.

“Argentina we will know about because we play them now in a tournament every year, so they will be strong as they always are and they will know a lot of about us,” Hansen said. “That fear factor I guess of each other won’t be as strong.

“Tonga — we know they can turn it on, on any given moment and if we get them on a night when they want to be really physical, then we will have to be on our game. I think there is an enough of a challenge in that pool to get us ready for a quarterfinal.”

Pool B sees two regular World Cup combatants, South Africa and Samoa, joined by Scotland and the top qualifier from Asia, normally Japan, and the second Americas side to qualify — usually the United States or Canada.

Pool D has a European look about it, with France heading the group followed by Ireland, Italy, the top Americas team (either the U.S. or Canada) and the second European qualifier, again likely to be either Georgia or Romania.

The quarterfinals will pit the winners of Australia’s pool A against the runner-up of pool B — which based on current rankings would be Samoa. The winner of pool B, most likely South Africa, will play the pool A runner-up. The winners of pool C, likely to be New Zealand, will play the runner-up in pool D, most probably Ireland, while the runner-up in C, probably Argentina, will meet the winners of pool D, likely to be France, if results go as expected.